


A Small Symbol

by veritasa



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: A little off canon, Because I can, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, OC romance, Pre-Hobbit, Pre-LotR, Young Love, other woman, ranger stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 13:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4667738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veritasa/pseuds/veritasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Aragorn's identity is revealed to him, he's just a young man who splits his time between Rivendell and a clan of Northern Rangers. As Estel, he makes his life with them. Asha, a young woman of the same clan, cannot help but return his affections, despite her foreknowledge that he cannot be hers to keep. A simple ranger's life and a simple young love are not their lot, and not all promises can be avoided.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Small Symbol

Asha glowered at the group of men as they strode back into camp. “Look what the cat dragged in.” She wiped her arm across her brow to wipe away the sweat and steam. “Put him there.” Her face bunched up in concentration as she looked the young man over, dunking a cloth into a piping hot bowl of herb water while she did. “Old Took’s Pipe, Estel, what mess have you gotten yourself into this time?” She muttered under her breath as she wiped the burning hot cloth along the gash in his leg.

“Was a wild boar, it was.” Haster chuckled under his words. “The boy got a bit uppity with it, and it put him back in his place.” He gestured toward a second group of rangers who were carrying back the carcass of the boar. “But on the bright side, there’ll be boar stew tonight!” A group of rangers laughed with a roar, and Asha couldn’t help but smile. Estel wasn’t wounded too terribly, and would patch up before the next patrol left in a fortnight. And boar stew was a treat.

“And what do you have to say for yourself, hm?”

Estel smiled, and even on his young face it looked like a crack opening in a craggy boulder. “I knew you liked boar stew.”

She scoffed, but smiled at him. “Wouldn’t like it much if it had gored you to death.”

“But it didn’t! I’m alive and well.”

“You’ll only be well because I have a decent supply of herbs. Nice patch of kingsfoil, too, on the far side of the ridge.”

“I knew you’d take care of me.” There was a flicker in his eyes when he said it that made her turn away from him, toward the still steaming pot of water. The steam flushed her cheeks and hid her blush. She was 17, long past when her father would have told her to stop tagging along to the patrol camps, but her father had died some years before. Her mother had joined him a few years later. With no parents to marry her off, she’d just kind of...stuck around.

“You have an awful lot of confidence that I’d stumble across the kingsfoil, boyo.” She wiped the steam and sweat from her forehead again, laying another cloth on top of the wound in his leg. “As it is, you’re confined to camp for a bit. If I know you - and I do - you’d stride off and somehow get the thing caked in septic mud.”

He smiled again, and her frown matched it. “You do know me, Asha. Confined to camp it is.”

“Good. Now, I’ve got to go see to the stew before Bashold gets ahold of it. He’d add too much pepperroot and none of us would feel our tongues for days.”

“Would not!” Another man, slighter than Haster but with more bulk and years than Estel, shouted across the clearing. “It’s just a dash for flavor. Not my fault that you all can’t handle a bit of heat.”

Asha laughed and walked toward the campfire. As she went, Estel’s smile turned downward. Haster’s shadow cast over him as both their eyes followed her. “Why don’t you just tell her so, boy?”

“Tell her what?”

Haster chuckled low and soft, crouching down next to him to inspect the work on his leg. “We’re not all blind, boy. She’s good to you, and you to her.”

“I don’t think she has similar thoughts, Haster. Whenever I smile at her, she frowns and turns away.”

“And she doesn’t touch you except when healing, am I right?” Estel nodded grimly. “Fool boy.” Haster chuckled.

#

She woke with a start from another dream. They were more frequent now. All her life, she had used the dreams; her mother had been known to worry over Asha's foresight. They had always been useful, some telling her where the hunt would be good, or when a winter would be cold, or when she would need to pick extra athelas, as she had a few weeks prior, just before Estel had gotten himself gored. But these dreams were different. She dreamt of a sword and cold stone. She dreamt of mountains of fire and the river as it flowed far to the south. She dreamt of a ring that she recognized from tales - the Ring of Barahir, a symbol of the Chieftains power in the tribes of Northern Rangers. She frowned, because this night she had seen it on a hand. A hand she half felt that she recognized. Whoever that hand belonged to was certainly Arathorn's heir, missing for these past twenty years. She shook herself again and gathered her cloak and skirt around her.

Asha drew her bow out from under her bedroll. She thought about nudging Haster awake to let him know she was going out to check traps, then frowned when she remembered he had gone to Bree. She didn’t want to wake the others, so she stepped quietly outside the circle of the camp. It was still early - before first light - and she had at least two hours before she would have to tend to the stew over the fire.

Her first trap had only a leftover leg from where a predator had gotten to her prey before her. The second, though, had a nice coney. It’d make a fine dried meat for the next ranging team. She heard the cries of the bear before she arrived at the third trap. She tossed a bit of earth into the breeze to cover her scent. The bear was clearly in pain, and it was young. She still avoided its notice, but frowned as she took in the situation. It was a small black bear, it’s paw only just small enough to fit in the trap where she’d laid it. It had begun to gnaw off its paw in an effort to escape, but with such a wound, it wouldn’t last long.

Silently, she drew her bow and selected an arrow. Poor creature would die quickly, at least, and serve a purpose with its fur, fat, and meat. She nocked the arrow and drew the string. She breathed out and released. A clean shot. The bear’s cries ended abruptly, and she drew her knife to begin work. She’d have to string it up and come back for it, but she could field dress it here, at least.

“That was a fine shot.” She spun, her knife switching from a skinning hold to a fighting one. Then her other arm shot out in a punch that stopped just short of Estel’s arm. “Especially in the dark.”

“Fool boy, sneaking up on a hunter like that.” She adjusted the bow as it was slung over her shoulder and switched her grip on the knife once more.

“Foolish hunter, letting someone sneak up on her.” His voice was teasing, and she couldn’t help but smile, even as she pressed her lips together to hide it.

“Only you walk that quietly, Estel. Not even Haster walks so like the elves.” Her face softened as she looked at him, as though she was forgetting herself as he grinned at her. “Come on then, and help me with this beast. Not letting the scavengers get her after she gave herself up to us.”

She was always kinder about animals than the other of his clan, especially the ranging parties that went out from the main camp. She cooked and mended and healed, but these were tasks she chose. She was as good a hunter as any of them, and could certainly hold her own in skirmishes. Estel drew his own knife and followed her toward the bear, keeping an eye on the surrounding forest for movement in case the bear’s cries had drawn more than he and Asha.

She drew in the dirt a small symbol, one that he had come to know as a child as a gesture of her respect and thanks. She’d likely made it up herself, or found it etched in a ruin somewhere, but it was hers now, and every Ranger knew it. She signed letters with it on occasion. She muttered the words of her thanks to Eru under her breath and pulled the arrow from the fallen bear. He knelt beside her and made the long incision down the bear’s front. “This will make a good blanket in the cold weather. It’s a good catch.”

She nodded and began to pull out the innards of the bear. “And it’ll be enough dried meat to last you when you leave us this winter.” He stiffened a bit. “Aye, we all know. Or at least I do. You’ve been hiding yourself in preparation, disguising it as trivialities since I confined you to camp.”

He stopped and peered at her. “That’s why you confined me, isn’t it? You already knew. How?”

She didn’t stop working, her muscles tense with the effort of cleaning the bear and not looking at Estel. “I pay attention.”

“I’ll come back, you know.”

“You always do.”

He wished he could touch her, make her look at him. She paid attention, and after Haster’s comments to him, couldn’t help but wonder if she paid closer attention to him. He supposed the risk was his to take. “I couldn’t stay away. Not from you.”

She was fully tensed now, and the ground below them was stained with the bear’s blood and guts. It was hardly a romantic moment. But they were Rangers, and survival was always first. Slowly, her muscles seemed to melt back into their normal fluid movements, though her breathing was fast. “Well, I’ll still be here in the spring.” She bit the inside of her lip as though she wanted to say something. “Let’s string this up for now. There’s a stream between here and the next trap we can wash off in.” They did this work in silence.

As they walked, Asha examined her hands. They were dirty and bloodstained. Her hair was pulled roughly back, tied around itself to hold it in place. She was not a beautiful woman. She had visited Rivendell a handful of times, and once Estel had introduced her to Elladan and Elrohir - sons of the Lord of Rivendell. They were handsome beyond reason, with delicate features that made them look like pictures in a book of tales rather than someone real. She had seen the elven women, too, who walked as though currents of air carried them along, and whose faces were ageless despite their centuries. Their voices were clear and soft, and their hair always seemed to be tended to. She frowned and resisted the urge to wipe her hands on her skirts.

She knelt at the edge of the stream, then adjusted herself out onto a rock to better reach the water. The current was not overly cold, and she dunked her hands in, watching the red and brown of her morning’s labor wash away in slithering colored bands. They were dull hands, but hard working. That at least she knew. Somewhere beside her, Estel was washing his hands as well. Their hands both knew labor, survival, and the hunt. They both knew the too-warm heat of a summer’s cooking fire and the too-cold nights that called people to share bedclothes. Asha had never shared bedclothes with the men as some of the women had. She had to be above reproach to travel with them during the ranging seasons.

Seeing the blood on her outer skirts, she knelt far enough in to scrub those off as well. Estel’s voice was close behind her when she heard it. “You’ve got some back here, too. Want some help?” His hands were already working on the stains on the back of her skirt where they dipped in the water. It wasn’t unfamiliar - they all helped where others couldn’t reach. But today it felt different. Today the air felt thick and clammy between them. Or perhaps she was misunderstanding things.

But the work and the silence stilled her thoughts, and her hands found their familiar patterns. Dawn was peeking over the horizon, and she knew she should get back soon. The men at least knew how to stir stew. She would let the morning sun dry her skirts a bit before she set off. She sat on the edge of the stream where the sun would shine in from the east down the water’s clearing.

“So you’ll go off with the elves again this winter?”

Estel nodded and sat down next to her. “Yes, as Elrohir has promised me some good winter tracking training farther north.”

“You’ve only a month or two to heal, then. At most.”

“Yes.”

She swallowed and her brow creased. “But you’ll come back in the spring, like always.” It wasn’t a question. She was trying to convince herself of something.

“Asha… there’s been… talk. From Halbarad’s camp.”

Her frown fastened tighter to her features. “Talk is too often idle. But what sort of talk?”

“That he may ask you to join their party.”

Her eyebrows shot up now in genuine surprise. “And where on earth have you heard that?”

Estel shrugged, his nineteen-year-old shoulders already feeling as though they held the world upon them. “Some of the men and women talk.”

“As I said, idle.” She said it with a vehement finality in her voice. “As though I would leave you to go off to Halbarad.” He realized what she had said before she did, and he watched a bright pink bloom across her features as she tried to downplay it. “Who would patch you up after you decide to arm wrestle a boar?”

He scooted closer to her, his fingers feeling the damp edges of her skirt. “No one takes care of me like you, it’s true.” He hadn’t learned to dance well, at least no more than the small jigs that the Rangers kept among themselves, but he felt this was something close to that. Or perhaps similar to the feeling of being unsure whether you were the hunter or the prey.

She seemed to notice his hand on her skirt and let out a breath. Her body loosened and the edge of her finger brushed his as she smoothed out her skirt. She left it there, just the side of her smallest finger touching his hand. This could be downplayed if it didn’t turn out well. But it was more than she should do.

“Will you wait for me, still, to the spring?”

She watched their hands as she lifted her smallest finger to run lightly along the edge of his hand. “So long as you come back to me in the spring.” She laughed in a rough huff of breath. “But I certainly won’t be running off to Halbarad’s bedroll.”

He slid his hand under hers, lacing her fingers into his. “For the first time, I would rather stay among the Rangers than go with Elrond’s sons. I would rather stay with you, if you would agree to it.”

She looked at him now, and traced the lines of his face with her gaze. She would remember this face, this moment’s emotions etched in his skin, for the rest of her days, she was sure. Dawn painted him in the barest of warm tones, and his eyes were wide and hopeful. Her free hand drifted up to trace over his rough chin with her thumb, almost of its own accord. “Estel… I would have you stay with me always, but that is not our lot. You will go in the winter and learn from your mother’s friends, and come back in the spring. That is your lot. It is mine to wait for you.”

He pressed a kiss into her palm. “I do not know if I am worthy.”

“To hunt with the elves? You have done it every year since joining us in the summers.”

“To love you.”

She blinked, somehow these words feeling more real than the sensation of his bearded kiss on her hand. The words were whispered against her skin, and she shuddered. She found no words, and so leaned her forehead against his. “Estel…”

His kiss was sudden and hungry, and she felt that no one would ever kiss her like that. It was a stupid thought, but she didn’t want anyone else to kiss her ever again. She let him turn her on her back and continue to kiss her on the dry riverbank. “Asha…” His breath on her neck all but ignited her. “I would have no woman beside you, not to share my bedclothes in the cold, not to hunt beside me, not to bind a hand to mine.” His eyes sank into her as his hands withdrew from her body to tangle in her hands again. “Could you...could you see the same?”

She slid her hands around his shoulders, pulling him down against her. Her fingers slide through his hair as she whispered, “I will wait for you this winter. I will share my bedclothes with no other. And if you will have me, I will bind my hand to yours.” He kissed her again, soundly but chastely, and the fire inside her calmed. “You are worthy of so much more than me,” she whispered.

“In all my travels, I have never seen or heard tell of anyone more deserving than you, Asha, daughter of Liran.”

She let out a breath that he took for acceptance, or perhaps contentment. But she knew better. The hand that she had seen wearing the Ring of Barahir was the same hand that she held. She knew Estel's name, even when he did not.

She would wait. But he would not come back to her in the spring.

 

#

She shivered against the early snap of cold. She hadn’t yet had time to tan the bear hide, and had given up her heavy blanket to the still-sickly Otver. She was sure the others in the camp were asleep, and she hoped exhaustion would carry her there soon. So it was a surprise when she felt the brush of a hand against her blanket. “Come. Bring your blanket. Share my warmth.”

Estel slept outside the camp slightly, and so there was no way he could have heard her shiver or even stumbled upon her in the dark. He had sought her out tonight. And she could deny him nothing, nor did she want to. Her body cried out for warmth and sleep, and he offered both in the safety of his arms. She wanted that, too. Silently, she gathered her bedroll and followed him to where he laid his out on the ground. He helped her stretch it to length and allowed her to lie down before him. He tucked the blanket close around her and lay behind her. His arm wrapped around her middle, the other tucking underneath his head. His knee, curling up into a sleeping position, rested comfortably between her thighs. He kissed the back of her neck, but no more, and she held his hand against her stomach with her own. She could envision years of nights lying together like this.

And then she dreamed. The beautiful elven woman walked there, in her dreams, among corridors of stone. She was smiling, a crown upon her head. And beside her walked Estel. She shivered in her dreams, and she was aware of Estel's arm wrapping tighter around her.

#

He came with her to check her traps nearly every morning now, and they took twice as long. He would find a tree that he could not resist pressing her up against. Or perhaps a stream called her to pull off her clothes down to her shift to wash them. But today was different. Today was the last morning before he left. There was a melancholy upon them, but also a desperation for reassurance from each other. The feel of a hand, the taste of a kiss. Every opportunity to know each other’s body was taken. And though the air held frost, Asha was down to her shift, and Estel’s shirt had apparently also needed washing. His fingers traced through her hair and hers drew shapes on his muscled torso. It was a slow, lazy moment that stole time from the day. Asha knew there was much to be done - more so to prepare for Estel’s departure on the morrow. But she could not move away from him, and her hands traced the same small shape she had etched beside the bear a few weeks before. She covered every inch of his skin with it, wishing she had some of the wizards’ power to use such glyphs to protect him. She splayed her fingers out, the very tips of them reaching his waistband.

His hands in her hair paused and she could hear his heart speeding under her ear. Without a word, he tilted her face up to his and kissed her. “Would that I did not have to leave you…” he managed to mumble between kisses. “I would bring you to this riverbed every day for a month and more.”

“And subject the camp to Bashold’s stew?” She smiled playfully, her hand sliding to his hip and just under the waistband. His hipbone made his skin taut and smooth, and she found she rather enjoyed the feel of it.

“Bashold can have the camp. I would have you.” His eyes were darkening as he spoke, pressing kisses lower on her neck. “Over. And over. And over.” Her fingers tensed on instinct, digging lightly into his flesh and pulling him toward her. They continued like that for some time, before Estel pulled himself back far enough to speak. “Tell me to wait for you til the spring, and I will stop now. You are worth everything, and I will not go against you if you wish to wait til we are bound. You need only tell me to wait.”

“Why would I do so, when I have no desire to wait?” The Rangers lived in close quarters - the progression of a romance or an arranged match was no mystery to her. And she wanted to lie with him for more than just the cold. “I am yours, Estel. I have always been, and always will be, no matter what comes.” Her eyes sparked with sudden mischief. “Though a memory of this day would do me well to surviving long winter’s nights alone.”

“Then we must ensure that it is a powerful memory, if it is to sustain us both.”

#

Her dreams that night confirmed what she already knew - that she should not have given in to her own desires. In her dreams, Estel did not roam the open woods with her, but instead surrounded himself in cold stone and long fires. That was not a life she knew, and her heart fought against the knowledge in her dreams. And so she rose early, sneaking the bearskin blanket she had made into his pack as a last selfish gesture. He would, at least, remember her for a few days by it. She kissed him while he slept, pressing her body against his so that it would remember his shape and his warmth for far longer than the few months of winter. He would be a full twenty years when the snow began to melt, and then she would not have to hide his name any longer.

“Wake, my love. You must go if you are to meet Elrond’s sons by noon.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead. He grumbled, comfortable enough with waking in her arms that he did not immediately rouse. “Your horse is packed, bridled, and ready. The packs are full of food and hunting equipment. And a few trinkets for those you have waited all these warm months for your return.”

His hand found her cheek and he pulled her down to a kiss without ever opening his eyes. “I will always work to be worthy of you. And I will dream of you often in these months. I will come back to you.”

She rolled away from him onto the cold ground. She had already packed her bedroll in his things, another selfish gesture disguised with practicality. She wanted to keep his scent about her, and hers about him, for a few lingering moments.She would lose him as quickly as she won him over. She was the one who could hold and love Estel, this man-child. But she would never be allowed to touch Aragorn, the king. For who was she next to the other, the one that walked in her dreams of him?

#

Haster’s wife Inirea knelt beside her in the hut at the edge of the winter encampment. Winter was full cold now, the wind blew by in low howls. There were wolves nearby too, calling the men away. Asha was grateful for that at least. When she had had the child in her, she had dreamt every night, powerful dreams of Estel, more real than any dream she’d yet had. But three nights before she had seen that ethereal elven face, the woman who would be Aragorn’s, and their first powerful meeting. And in the three nights since that vision she had not dreamed. And today there was blood evidence that the child, too, was no more.

“You’ll tell him in the spring, when he returns? He will hate having missed bearing such pain with you.” Inirea was stoking the fire in the middle

Grieving and in pain, Asha did not keep as close a guard on her tongue as she normally did. “Estel will not return. He will go up to his rightful place. And he will forget me. So it is better for him not to know.”

Inirea sniffed. “Forget you? Lass, I know this is hard, but remember the way he looked at you. It wasn’t just for use of your body that you had his child. That boy loved you as I see few men love their betrothed.”

As if commanded, Asha did try to remember the way he looked at her. He had left them just over five months before, and his face in the early morning light on the riverbed came easily to her. “I know he loved me. But he will meet someone who will make him worthy, truly.”

“Worthy of what? There’s no woman in all the Northern Rangers that can hold a candle to you. Estel isn’t one to doff his responsibilities or his promises lightly.”

“He won’t be Estel anymore.” Asha muttered. “He will have many names. But never again Estel.”

Inirea continued to boil out the herbs that would dull Asha’s pain. They had already boiled out her clothes to clean the blood. Inirea would take care of her in every practical way. Asha sighed and laid back down. It had been a mistake to lie with him, she knew. And the loss of this child would not be the only way she paid for it.

#

Her fingers traced in the dirt at Gilraen’s grave. Estel - no Aragorn - had been here before he left, but was always in a rush now, it seemed. She cleaned off the small figure and the text engraved on it: Ónen i-estel edain, ú-chebin estel anim. “I have kept no hope for myself,” she mumbled so quietly she couldn’t even properly hear herself. He had asked her if she would have him stay. She had sent him away. She had not told him of the child. She had let him fall in love with the elven woman. Let him become himself. Twenty years old and holding all the weight of the world. Now though, he was nearly forty, and had been gone from this place for some years. Years enough that she had risked a visit. 

The elves had seemed to know her, at least as one of Aragorn's clanswomen. She had been welcomed and treated as a guest, and had not been bothered when she set out to find this place. Perhaps the weather would leave her mark alone, and some day far from now he would return and see that she had been there. Perhaps he would not even recognize the mark by then. She wondered if she hoped, for his sake, that he would forget her. Her brow bunched together. She didn't know if she could hope that selflessly.

She heard something behind her and did not stir. She was not young any longer, and her reflexes showed that. Neither did she fear anything inside the Last Homely House.

“You are the girl, then. The woman he claimed to love.” The voice was old and deep and powerful. It was Lord Elrond, she knew without turning.

“If that is how you would say it.” She wiped a last clump of moss from the grave.

He was at the edge of the grove, with no reason to be here other than to seek her out. Why did it matter to him if she was here, if she was the one that Estel had claimed to love?

“You could have kept him. You knew he would leave you if you let him come here.” There was a crack of grief to his voice, as though he, too, understood what he would lose - had already lost - by the meeting of Arwen and Aragorn.

“I am but a mortal girl, as you say. How would I know any such thing?” She was tight in body and mind now, resilient though she wanted to flee. Who was even this elf-lord to follow her to this sacred place and harangue her with what could have been? She had seen it, put together her knowledge of history and the cursed foresight of her dreams. And she had let him go on to his greatness. She had made a sacrifice. She could bring herself little pity for the elf-lord's delayed loss.

“You can see it. Your dreams show you more than you should know - the foresight of the Dunedain. And you…” his voice broke, lowered into a soft, grieved whisper. “You could have saved her this heartache.”

She turned, her eyes meeting his, as though she was worthy to stand to his level. “Her heartache is momentary. As is mine.”

He frowned. “You will bear this grief for him and the child for years, until…” his voice stilled suddenly. “I see.”

“And I will not make him break his word, not to me, nor to the Lady Arwen.” She brushed off her knees. “He promised to bind himself to me when next he saw me. So he will not see me. I will break my word of waiting for him with the clans in the valley. I will go elsewhere and disappear from him. He will think of me less and less often. He will not find me, and so will never be held to his promise to take me to wife.” She stopped at the edge of the grove, looking across at the other entrance to the sacred place. "She will walk long halls of stone, a diadem on her brow. And he will walk beside her."

"You cannot know that." His voice was angry, and it reminded Asha of her own voice that cold night in the winter camp. There was a thick grief to it that he did not understand. Losing a child was not something that one willfully comprehended.

"Perhaps not. But it is what let's me go on." She turned her back on the elf lord. He had come to her seeking someone to blame, or perhaps a reason for his pain. She could provide neither. But she would disappear, as she said. Aragorn would not find her.

#

Sixty eight years. Asha’s hands were slower now, but she smiled at the young boy who came to her with his scraped knee. His tears were still drying on his face, but the smile he returned warmed her heart as she scooted him back out the door. Sixty eight years since she had seen Estel’s face. And now, if the rumors reaching the north were true, he was High King Aragorn II Elessar. Such titles for a boy who had pledged to her.

She frowned when she heard the trumpets. Why on earth would any noble be here? Bree was small and no place for nobility. She frowned still more when the pounding of hooves seemed to be coming up her street. She settled back down when it passed and went back to her work. She was preparing poultices for the hunters who would go out soon. Only a few more to go for this year’s stock, and she must finish them today. There would be no more time.

A knock on her door startled her, and she stepped quickly over to open it, expecting another scraped knee or some such childish injury. But it was not.

For a moment she could only stare as her aged eyes watered. She was fragile and old, but her heart thundered against her chest when she saw him. He was older too, with lines where there had not been, and the fading outline of a crown upon his forehead where he had removed it. He could have been her Estel, if things had been otherwise.

As it was, she stepped back into the house and curtsied low. It wasn’t a skill she practiced often, and at first she thought her wobble was what made him reach out a hand to her. But his face was soft, kind, and knowing. There would be no convincing him that she was just a dour old lady now.

She was ashamed again of her hands and face. They had aged, with liver spots and thinning skin and wrinkles that told deep and long tales. He still looked a man of forty, and she had heard tales that his Queen was resplendent as a summer’s day. And that his child looked to be the embodiment of May.

His child.

She froze, unable to move past this one image - the young boy running into his father’s arms. The boy was golden and glorious, a future king in every way. But her mind was a turncoat, and in her imagination it was the child she had lost, darker now and not in the halls of Minas Tirith. She stepped back from his hand.

“My lord King.” She tilted her head down as tears spilled before she could stop them.

“Asha…” He stepped closer again. “Do you not know me?”

Her head snapped up, and her eyes shot with a familiar fire at him. “Of course, I know you. You are Aragorn, son of Arathorn, chieftain of the Dúnedain of Arnor, Captain of the Host of the West, bearer of the Star of the North, wielder of the Sword Reforged, victorious in battle, whose hands bring healing, the Elfstone, Elessar of the line of Valandil, Isildur's son, Elendil's son of Numenor.” Her age hid itself as she spoke, and for a brief moment Aragorn could have perhaps seen the face that he had kissed beside the river. Then she was old once more, and her voice quieter. “I have known you. And know you still.”

He reached for her again and she pulled back. “You were not to come here.” Her voice was sad, not angry, and tears washed her face. “You were supposed to forget me, fully, when the bearskin unraveled and unstrung.”

“I still have that hide.”

She laughed. “Well, then it has preserved better than my own skin.” She sat down, age and familiarity removing her compulsion to stand. “I have not the elvish influence that you do. I am old now, older than I thought I would live to be.” She took a deep breath, then leveled her gaze on him, a power in it he had seen only a few times before, and never from her. “And you are no longer Estel.”

“I would bring you back to Minas Tirith, and give you payment for that promise which I broke.” His voice was hoarse now, too, and he knelt before her.

“Aragorn made me no promise. And Estel left behind as much payment as he could have.” She grew small, pulling in against herself. “Tis not that one’s fault that the child did not live to see the light.”

Aragorn had come with some sort of plan, she knew. Visions of redeeming himself, and her, and showing her that he had made good on his promise to be worthy, even if it wasn’t to be worthy of her. But this he had not expected. He rocked back on his heels. “A child.”

“We were not fools. That is one outcome of what we chose to do.”

He was silent for a long moment, and she left him to it. She had had sixty-eight years to process what had happened. He was only just learning it. “Did the child have a name?”

“It did not live to be given one.”

“You should have told me.”

“In the same way that you should have come back. Those imperatives were on people we could not be.” She sighed. “But you have come back, and I have told you. We have fulfilled even the remnants of a promise. Go back to your kingdom, your city, your Queen…” Her voice broke. “Your son.”

He reached for her, and she found she was not strong enough to resist him. He embraced her, a lover and a friend and an elder all at once. He pressed his lips to her soft and wrinkled forehead. “You will not come?”

She gripped his hand for a moment, willing everything to be as she might wish it, but it was a fool’s errand, and she let it slip from her. “No. I will stay here. But I will not live to see this sunset.” She settled her body back into her chair, pulling away from him. “I have spent my life seeing that which I should not see, and mourning promises that could not be kept. It is a weak life in that. But now I can breathe easy, and so breathe my last.”

“There are healers…”

She laughed. “I am one - the best in Bree. And there is no healer that can undo old age. The blood of Numenor runs thick in you. You will not pass for some years, and you will know before you go. Your son will rule well in your place, and your kingdom will last the duration of the Fourth Age. How’s that for seeing things I shouldn’t see?” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I have no right to ask this of a king, but perhaps whatever part of you kept that hide might see fit to give me this boon - stay with me these few moments. It will do my old soul good to feel you nearby as it accepts the Gift of Men.”

Aragorn nodded, the whole of the world outside forgotten. He could be, for these brief moments, a boy called Estel who would keep a promise to a girl he loved. He knelt at her feet, where he had sat so many times in those blissful months so long ago, and took her hand in his. She smiled down at him, and knew that she, too, knew with certainty that this was her end. Softly, he began to sing.

“The leaves were long, the grass was green,  
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,  
And in the glade a light was seen  
Of stars in shadow shimmering.  
Tinúviel was dancing there  
To music of a pipe unseen,  
And light of stars was in her hair,  
And in her raiment glimmering.

There Beren came from mountains cold,  
And lost he wandered under leaves,  
And where the Elven-river rolled  
He walked alone and sorrowing.  
He peered between the hemlock-leaves  
And saw in wonder flowers of gold  
Upon her mantle and her sleeves,  
And her hair like shadow following.

Enchantment healed his weary feet  
That over hills were doomed to roam;  
And forth he hastened, strong and fleet,  
And grasped at moonbeams glistening.  
Through woven woods in Elvenhome  
She lightly fled on dancing feet,  
And left him lonely still to roam  
In the silent forest listening.”

In the third verse, her breath stilled and her hand loosened on his. He held it for a moment longer, then placed it with the other in her lap. He kissed her forehead again and looked at her. She was old still, but the beauty of her youth revealed itself, too. For a moment, he let himself envision what life they might have had if their paths had been theirs to choose. They had been young, all but children, but he could have been happy with her for many long years. She had known better than he had. She knew he was more. That, at least, he would never forget.

He wiped tears from his face and went back through the door. “The healer is dead.” He said to a waiting attendant. “See that her body gets to the remaining Rangers for their proper burial." The attendant nodded and went off to fetch the undertaker. Aragorn waited a moment, then traced his finger across the door jam - a small symbol of respect and thanks.

**Author's Note:**

> The song he sings at the end is the first part of the lay of Beren and Luthien, as Aragorn sings it to Sam and Frodo on Weathertop.
> 
> I know it skips forward through Asha's life, so if a jump isn't clear, send me a review and I'll try to fill it in.


End file.
